‘Kill this beast who has brought so much despair and come home to us safe, my friend.’
It was Perri who accompanied him to the mountain that night. From there, Froi would travel through the valley and pass the province of Alonso where he would meet Rafuel’s contact. They would travel for days and at the foot of the ravine outside the capital, they would be introduced to a man named Gargarin of Abroi, who had answered the request of the Provincaro of Sebastabol to travel to the palace with the lastborn.
When they began their ascent, Froi heard the beauty of the Priestking’s voice across the land, and the song inside Froi that he refused to sing, ached to be let loose. What had frightened him most about Rafuel of Sebastabol was that his stories had made Froi’s blood dance. They had given him a restlessness. A need to be elsewhere to search for a part of himself that was lost. But what he feared was that the search to find answers would take him away from this land of light. That once he left, he would never find his way back home.
In the Flatlands of Sennington, Lady Beatriss heard the song and sowed seeds into a dead earth that refused to yield. Her beloved daughter Vestie sat on the verandah waiting for Trevanion, who had kept away these past days. In the distance, she saw two more of her villagers take leave with all their possessions for the more fertile land of their neighbours and a loneliness and dread gripped Beatriss more fiercely than in those wretched years when the kingdom was torn apart.
In the valley between Lumatere and Alonso, the wife Lucian of the Monts had sent back camped in a cave between her father’s province and her husband’s mountain. She recorded the names of her people, and learnt the ways of the Lumateran healers. Most nights her shame burnt bright and she longed to return home. But she pledged to herself and the goddess she had chosen to be her guide, that one day Phaedra of Alonso would be something more than the object of the Monts’ ridicule and Alonso’s failure.
In the mountains, Lucian stumbled to his empty cottage, his body weighed by the weariness of leading a people who had little respect for him. He wondered what his father would do, if he lived. A fair man, Saro was, who had tried to teach Lucian to see the worth in every man and woman, regardless of whether they were the enemy. But Lucian was not his father and deep inside of him a desire burnt bright each night. A desire to steal away down the mountain and cut the throats of every Charynite who slept in the valley. Including that of the wife he sent back.
Part Two
The Reginita
Chapter 6
Lumatere had always been a feast for Froi’s eyes. Even during the years of little rain, it was a contrast of lush green grass and thick rich silt, carpeting the Flatlands and the river villages. But Charyn was a kingdom of rock and very little beauty. Here, the terrain was a rough path of dirt, pocketed with caves and hills of stone. Sometimes the dry landscape was peppered with wild flowers or the mountains of rock were shaped like the ghouls and spirits painted in the
Rafuel and the Priestking had instructed Froi that most of the Charynites had migrated to the kingdom from all corners of Skuldenore. The only original inhabitants had been the Serkers, who had now disappeared, although stories existed of underground cities where Serkers and other nomads were in hiding from the King and plotting their revenge.
Stone, stone, rock, stone and more stone.
Froi met his guide outside the province walls of Alonso, the birthplace of the wife Lucian had sent back. It was a province bursting with unwanted newcomers, a place on the brink of war within its walls. These days it accommodated its desperate neighbours from the smaller provinces all but wiped out by plague and drought. Froi suspected that the Provincaro’s marriage of his daughter to Lucian had little to do with a promise between two men and more to do with a need to make use of the Lumateran valley.
Apart from the capital, which was known as the Citavita, there were six provinces left in Charyn, each one of them large, powerful and containing the most fertile land in the kingdom. There were also a handful of mountain tribes or nomads who kept very much to themselves. Rafuel had explained that if a clan chose to stay outside the major walls of a larger province, there was always the threat of the palace riders collecting their young men to be part of the King’s army or taking their lastborn girls. At least in the provinces, people were protected by the Provincari who still had power against the King. The palace’s greatest fear was that the Provincari would unite their armies against the King, but after the annihilation of Serker, no Provincaro was willing to take that chance.
The guide’s name was Zabat from the province of Nebia, east of the capital. He spent much of his time not looking Froi in the eye, which was never a good sign.
‘You have a strange name,’ Froi said, as he changed clothing and became Olivier of Sebastabol. The trousers were uncomfortable, tighter than he was used to wearing, the doublet jacket worse. But he liked his buskins and he fastened the laces up to his knees, relieved that there was at least one article of clothing that didn’t make him feel a fool.
‘Strange in what way?’ Zabat demanded.
‘Different from Rafuel and even the Princess Quintana.’
‘Those of us from Nebia hail from the kingdom of Sorel. Hundreds of years ago, mind you. You’d think everyone would get over that fact, wouldn’t you? We have as much right to Charyn as anyone else.’
‘And who says you don’t?’ Froi asked.
‘Those from the province of Paladozza,’ the guide said, seemingly on the defensive. ‘And anyone from the Citavita. They all came from the kingdom of Sendecane during the time of the Ancients. Just like most of the Lumateran Forest Dwellers and those from the Rock.’
‘Charynites and Lumaterans don’t hail from the same place,’ Froi scoffed.
‘Do you have women named Evestalina? Bartolina? Celestina? Men named Raffio?’
Froi didn’t reply.
‘All from the same place,’ Zabat stated flatly. ‘Nothing changes. Names stay the same. So do traits.’
The time Froi enjoyed best was when the terrain was flat enough for a gallop. It meant he didn’t have to listen to Zabat’s voice drone on and on.
‘ … and really, who put Rafuel in charge, I ask? Does he look like a warrior to you …’
Or when they came across a herd of mountain goats and their bleating drowned out Zabat’s voice. But all too soon it would begin again.
‘ … did he say I was a Priestling? Doubt that. What? Do you think they’re better than the rest of us because they’re gods’ touched? Gods’ touched.’ Zabat made a rude sound. ‘It’s all I’ve heard my whole life. The gods’ touched or the lastborns. There’s always someone more special than us ordinary folk.’
Apart from such distractions, there was little around Froi to take his attention away from Zabat’s complaining. The world outside the provinces was nothing more than brown tufts of grass and stone. Miles upon miles of land had been either overgrazed or was too far from water to carve out a living. Suddenly he could understand the overcrowded Alonso and the desire for Charynites to keep inside the province’s walls.
‘ … and if you ask me …’
No, Froi didn’t ask him.
‘ … the Serkers were the worst,’ Zabat continued. ‘Their people built the first library, as well as the largest amphitheatres in Charyn, so weren’t they the greatest in the land in their own eyes? I say it’s a good thing that Serker is now in ruins.’
Later, Froi dared ask what the shapes in the far distance were. A mistake.
‘The Province of Jidia,’ Zabat replied, as they began to travel down a ridge that would lead them to yet another mountain of stone.
‘ … because really, who cares if the Jidians built the first road to the Citavita? Do we have to hear about it
